


Sort Of Like Fate

by toskliviydays



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Domestic Fluff, M/M, i hate snk now and i wrote this forever and a half ago but im posting all my old fics here SO.....
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 08:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3128417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toskliviydays/pseuds/toskliviydays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>marco is too much like a shining star for his sorry ass.</p>
<p>but he's glad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sort Of Like Fate

**Author's Note:**

> radical hs au bc theyre obnoxious teenagers for eternity

In school, Jean excelled. There wasn’t much more to say about it than that, though; he set his bars only ever high enough to surpass his peers, but there was rarely any heart in it, any enthusiasm, and by high school his parents’ eyes easily scanned over teachers’ comments of praise and vague concern. Jean, simply put, wasn’t an academic. He was an opportunist.

Marco on the other hand was average and proud of it, working himself diligently while juggling his time between extracurriculars. He could see the subtleties in people and the possibilities that they represented, could step away from his frustrations and his surroundings to see every path to a greater future. At the same time, however, he was loath to take credit in any more of a way than instructing others above him of these things that he’d seen. He was frankly terrified, but still he took responsibilities upon himself that aggravated his sense of comfort. Marco was a shining light to his peers, goodness in intention and spirit, and he took every emotional and physical slight he received with patience backed by morality and the self-assurance that he needn’t guard against things that hardly hurt him.

But he still felt a need to  _protect,_ regardless, and to care for. He was the oldest brother of a large, busy family, forgoing his own desires for those of his younger siblings and looked after them with a careful attentiveness that his working parents often could not. Very few questioned the brotherly way he looked after everyone he met. He was selfless, and for this reason it was so damn odd to everybody of Saint Maria High School as to why he and Jean Kirstein seemed near inseparable.

They'd both transferred into the school as sophomores and, despite their quite opposite personalities, they always seemed to be stuck together. From orientation to all of their classes, they gravitated towards each other’s familiar face, and even as Jean attempted to tease and prod at Marco’s seemingly put-on innocence, they learned of each other and took that knowledge to heart.

For a long time, their conversations were school-related and offhand, Marco praising Jean for his successes (which he for a while indulged in but then began to shrug off) and Jean inadvertently making Marco a neutral sidekick in his shenanigans. He disrupted class as often as he contributed to it, and it was only ever Marco’s intervention that kept the loud teen from getting into trouble. It was not until Jean got in his first fight at Saint Maria that they became anything more than classroom acquaintances, however.

Marco had been coming out of the school with a fellow student council member when they’d been met with the loud jeers and accusations of two hotheaded boys. It would be the first of many between Jean Kirstein and Eren Jaeger, but at the time, Marco had been taken absolutely aback at the very idea of anybody being so stupid as to fight on _school grounds_. 

It took several minutes of his and the other student council member’s efforts to force the two apart, but upon realizing that the other boys knew each other (“Eren, this really isn’t the time—”), Marco had suggested that they both take their stay dogs some back to the kennel. Jean was indignant, pulling himself angrily out of Marco’s grasp, but Eren’s eyes were trained. And for some reason, the look in them scared Marco. He was quick to drag Jean away regardless of his protests.

"Marco, what the fuck, where’re you even taking me?"

The freckled boy just offered a small, bothered smile. “Out onto the grass. How’d you even manage to get that kid so angry?”

Jean scowled, acquiescing to Marco’s hold around his wrist. For all he thought he looked menacing, Marco was just reminded of his little brother after he rode his bike off a makeshift ramp and down a forested hill. As the brunette ushered him to sit down in the greenery at the quad behind the school, Jean spoke. “Found out even talking about the Titans pissed him off. I thought it would be funny, but then he took it seriously enough to throw a punch. I wasn’t just going to take that.”

Giving him a disapproving look, Marco rummaged around in his shoulder bag for some wet wipes before offering them up. “Clean your face. You look like a delinquent.”

Jean laughed at that, though. “I  _am_  a delinquent.”

"You’re too smart to be. Besides, if no teachers noticed by now, you don’t need to get one asking about it when your parents come to pick you up."

Jean pulled out a wipe and rubbed it vaguely across his face, giving Marco a disparaging look. He couldn’t believe this kid, honestly. “It’s not like they’d see. Or care. They’re off in some African country getting ‘cultured’.”

"You’ve missed your entire face," Marco offered, giving the abrasions a careful look before it quite hit him what Jean had said. "Wait, what? Then who are you living with?"

"Myself. Where am I even supposed to be using this? Help a kid out here, I don’t got a mirror."

Marco frowned. That explained why Jean was such a brat, he figured. Intelligent, competent, and strong, but lacking in anybody to tell him to knock it off. Seemed a bit lonely, actually; was that why he tried so hard to get everybody’s attention all the time? Leaning over and snatching the wipe up to clean Jean’s face himself, he spoke. “Then why were you hanging around the—”

But before he’d finished his question, the other boy had flushed a deep red, pulling back and slapping Marco’s hand away. “What the fuck, dude, are you—”

"I was helping." Jean’s flustered, distressed expression was met only with a confused one on Marco’s part, the two of them lapsing into a sudden, awkward silence. But then Marco sat back, packing the wipes away and giving Jean a decisive look.

"You should come over to my house. It would probably be good for you, and that looks like it’s going to turn into a black eye. I live like a block away. You should put something on it."

Jean, for his part, was still taken aback by what he’d seen to be a little too intimate handling from his sort-of friend. But Marco wasn’t even— he wasn’t even being weird about it. He wasn’t making Jean seem like the weird one, either, he was just… looking out for him? It made Jean incredibly uneasy, and he hardly even registered Marco’s suggestion before the other sighed and stood up. He blinked up at him.

"At any rate, you shouldn’t stay. Eren looked like he was going to hunt you down and kill you." Marco just kept talking, waiting for Jean to respond, his very demeanor composed and unbothered. Jean came to his senses and stood, brushing off his pants and looking decidedly not at his classmate.

"Okay, yeah."

"My mom can take you home later if you want. We have to go to the store anyway."

With that, Marco began walking, watching to make sure Jean followed and giving him a bright smile when he did. Jean, still feeling unbalanced, ruffled up the top of his own hair and gave Marco a curious look. “Why’re you so nice? You’re not gonna chop me up in your basement or sell me to some sex trade, are you?” It was a joke, but he was honestly curious.

"Wh— wait, what?!" Marco practically squeaked, and for a split second Jean considered that he’d hit the nail on the head. "No, that’s— it would be rude to leave you here, especially since I can help. Besides, what would you do beside get into more trouble? I can’t let you do that."

His words were rushed and somewhat breathless. Jean felt a little stammer in his chest at the earnestness and terrible attempt at delayed nonchalance, and he thought maybe he was looking at the polar opposite to himself. “Well, you could, actually.”

"No." Marco turned away, rounding a quick corner on the sidewalk of the well-kept residential community, and Jean very nearly walked right into the street by mistake. As they closed in on what he assumed to be Marco’s house, he felt a little disappointed. He hadn’t thought he’d had any expectations in those few months of knowing Marco, but he’d thought maybe it would be a soft, warm sight with a big doghouse and a porch swing or something. Instead, it looked… like an incredibly normal, middle-class house. One that held too many kids with too little adult supervision to keep it as immaculate as Marco did his notes. From the way Marco talked, it seemed like he was the only one keeping order in his house, but when Jean tried to imagine him being authoritative, he failed.

"Take your shoes off and sit on the sofa. My little brothers should be home in about twenty minutes, and I’m gonna go find something to put on your face."

"Does its perfection offend you?" The response was automatic, and Jean paused for a minute, expecting Marco to take him seriously.

"Kind of. I need to save it before it loses its offensiveness and I have to move to your personality. Which would be unfortunate."

It was such a perfect response solely for the fact that Jean could say nothing back at it, and he laughed a little, taking off his sneakers and looking around the cool, dimly-lit house and finding it satisfactory to the homey, gentle atmosphere Marco himself gave off. The curtains were closed to preserve the artificial air, but everything else felt completely natural, between the plants that lent life and the closeness of its organization that still allowed proper flow through the rooms. Everything was pretty clean for having four school aged kids too, he thought, but then again he couldn’t see anybody related to Marco being incredibly messy or rude. He sat down, gingerly, and waited. There was only the slightest of anxieties trembling within him, and he wasn’t sure just what it stemmed from. Maybe the fact he didn’t know at all how to react to Marco? His home was easy enough to guess, but his actions just… weren’t. They were a little too perfect, and they caught him off guard.

Thinking too hard, he missed the sound of the boy in question reappearing, and he jumped somewhat as he felt the pressure of the cushions shift beside him. Marco gave him an almost sheepish look.

"Sorry. Here: put this on your cuts so they heal up fast, and this on your eye. It’ll probably still be black by tomorrow, but at least it will go away sooner."

"You’re like a perfect human being. I’m waiting for you to turn into a monster and steal my soul, honestly."

It was Marco’s turn to be taken aback now. He flushed, shoving the compress and ointment at Jean a little too roughly as he stood up. He couldn’t tell— was that a compliment? Marco didn’t… really… take them well. He always got stuttery and tried to brush them off, and that was with people he was  _trying_  to impress. Jean, well— he’d freaked out just when he’d wiped the other’s face earlier. He smiled, bewildered. “I’m. Not going to steal your soul or anything. Do you want something to drink? It’s not from my victims’ bodily fluid, I swear.”

"Shit." Jean grinned, smacking the compress on his face and laughing a little. "You even got a comeback when you’re like that. Sure, yeah, I’ll have whatever. Thanks."

Feeling oddly light, Marco left again to retrieve two glasses of iced tea, turning on the television and setting both drinks on wooden coasters. He tried not to look at Jean as he did this, but when he finally did, he saw the other was smiling, eyes scanning whatever had just flickered on.

Marco, after a moment of staring, sat down beside Jean and crossed his legs, taking a quiet sip of his tea and passing the remote to his friend. Jean just glanced at him this time, smiling still. “I should get in more fights if this is the treatment I get for it.”

But Marco huffed, suddenly earnest. “No you shouldn’t! You’re just lucky nobody saw you today!”

"I’m kidding." Jean lightly tapped the remote against Marco’s forehead, adjusting the compress with his other hand. "Eren hits like a madman. But I do think I like your house."

"You can come over whenever you want."

It was an instant response.

"Come on now Marco, we can’t start living togehter yet, I haven’t even met your parents!’

"They’ll like you."

And it was like this that they kept catching each other continuously and needlessly off guard for the rest of the afternoon. Jean did surprisingly well with kids. Marco marveled at the little miracles of chance, and then decided that maybe he was just supposed to meet Jean in the first place. He exuded that kind of permanence.


End file.
